David Solnit on the WTO in Bali and the Fourteen Year Anniversary of the “Battle of Seattle”
By AK Press | December 4, 2013
David Solnit takes a moment to reflect on the fourteen year anniversary of the collapse of the WTO meetings in Seattle, Wa as talks in Bali end in an impasse. David and his sister Rebecca are authors of The Battle of the Story of the Battle of Seattle, published by AK Press. Follow the link to the write up and commentary with Paul deArmond at Popular Resistance.
Topics: AK Authors!, Current Events, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Win a copy of Undoing Border Imperialism!
By Suzanne | November 13, 2013
About Undoing Border Imperialism:
Undoing Border Imperialism combines academic discourse, lived experiences of displacement, and movement-based practices into an exciting new book. By reformulating immigrant rights movements within a transnational analysis of capitalism, labor exploitation, settler colonialism, state building, and racialized empire, it provides the alternative conceptual frameworks of border imperialism and decolonization. Drawing on the author’s experiences in No One Is Illegal, this work offers relevant insights for all social movement organizers on effective strategies to overcome the barriers and borders within movements in order to cultivate fierce, loving, and sustainable communities of resistance striving toward liberation. The author grounds the book in collective vision, with short contributions from over twenty organizers and writers from across North America.
Visit the AK Press website for more information on this new title!
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Half-Price Titles for November
By AK Press | November 6, 2013
It’s that time again! We’ve picked a few AK Press titles to mark down to 50% off just for this month. And we’ve picked some good stuff, if we do say so ourselves… if you’re the holiday shopping sort, you might want to take this opportunity while you can!
Here’s what’s on sale for the month of November:
You Can’t Win
Jack Black
$16.00
On sale for $8.00!
Since Predator Came: Notes from the Struggle for American Indian Liberation
Ward Churchill
$21.95
On sale for $10.98!
Paradoxes of Utopia: Anarchist Culture and Politics in Buenos Aires 1890–1910
Juan Suriano
$18.95
On sale for $9.48! E-book on sale for $7.00!
We, the Anarchists! A Study Of The Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI) 1927–1937
Stuart Christie
$17.95
On sale for $8.98!
Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures, 1960s to Now
Ed. Dara Greenwald & Josh MacPhee
$28.95
On sale for $14.48!
Get em while they’re hot, and stay tuned to our e-mail list and social media to find out about future months’ sale titles!
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Enter to win a free copy of One Game at a Time!
By Suzanne | October 9, 2013
About One Game at a Time:
Sports are serious stuff. Football, basketball, tennis, mixed martial arts, and beyond: these are arenas of immense power, with mass appeal, yet far too many of us have abandoned the sporting world as a legitimate site of contestation and innovation. Why? What do we gain by handing over the power of sports to the world of hyper-consumption, militarism, violence, sexism, and homophobia—the worst elements of our culture? As Matt Hern suggests, not a whole lot.
On the basis of his forty-plus years of sports fanaticism, Hern makes an impassioned and entertaining plea for a more active engagement with sports, both physically and intellectually. His eye is critical, and his analysis is sharp, but this book is more than a critique—it’s a celebration of what sports have taught us, and a map of how much more we still have to learn. Matt Hern is a former sportswriter and a radical urbanist whose writing has been published on six continents.
Fun, engaging, and fast-paced, One Game at a Time is for anyone willing to get their head into the game.
Visit the AK Press website for more information on this new title!
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Half-Price AK Press Titles for October
By Suzanne | October 7, 2013
With a new month comes new deals!
Each month we like to pick a few of our AK Press titles to feature, and when we do, we mark them down to half price all month! Of course we think they’re all awesome books (that’s why we published them to begin with). And they’re even more awesome when you can get them for 50% off. Eh? Eh?
This month’s featured titles are:
Haymarket Scrapbook: 25th Anniversary Edition
Edited by Franklin Rosemont & David Roediger
$23.00 On sale for $11.50!
Radical Priorities
Noam Chomsky
$18.95 On sale for $9.48!
Durruti in the Spanish Revolution
Abel Paz
$27.95 On sale for $13.98!
Dynamite: The Story of Class Violence in America
Louis Adamic
$19.95 On sale for $9.98!
Wasting Libby: The True Story of How the WR Grace Corporation Left a Montana Town to Die (and Got Away With It)
Andrea Peacock
$15.95 On sale for $7.98!
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Editor Q&A with Lisa Factora-Borchers of Dear Sister: Letters From Survivors of Sexual Violence
By christa | October 2, 2013
Available through AK Press in January 2014
Why did you decide to edit this book, and how do you feel it is contributing to the conversation and work around sexual violence?
Lisa Factora-Borchers: When I first worked as a legal and medical advocate for survivors of sexual violence, I often wished I had something to give them that very first night I met them after their assault. The packet they went home with was usually a plain folder filled with various tip sheets and hotline numbers. And when I walked them out of the hospital, I watched some of them collapse into a family member’s arms or I’d watch them step into a cab to take them home. It wasn’t those images that haunted me, but the feeling of aloneness they carried. I wanted to give them something more than that folder. That was the beginning of a very long road to begin an anthology for survivors.
I feel the conversation around sexual violence, particularly in the media, does very little for survivors themselves. Books about prevention are either written by academics or feminist authors about sexual prowess and empowerment. These can be powerful tools for deconstructing theories and strategies, but that doesn’t help the survivor in that very moment who holding the trauma in her body, reliving the violence because of the isolating nature of survivorhood. This anthology is multipurposed. It is first and foremost for survivors to know they are not alone. And it is also a tool for the communities survivors live in. Some of the pieces in the anthology lay down possibilities for helping survivors heal and also to address sexual violence at its core: in our own families, peer groups, professional settings, and neighborhoods. All of this is told by the survivors themselves. Who better to centralize in a discussion about sexual violence than the ones who have survived it?
Who are you trying to speak to with this collection? What does this book do differently than other books on the topic of sexual assault and abuse?
L: I’m speaking to the survivors of sexual violence and anyone who lives in community with them. (That means everyone.) Anthologies, in the literary world, are supposed to offer a compelling argument about a specific issue. Dear Sister makes a compelling argument by harmonizing different voices about justice, sexuality, and healing. It gives varying and different accounts of how one goes about their survival. There is no one path that works for everyone. This anthology highlights that diversity and speaks to the unpatterned and complex nature of everyday healing. It offers other survivors touchstones as they go through their own healing process. The survivors reflect upon the roles reproductive justice, immigration, healthcare, art, sexuality, poverty, race, and feminism have played in their lives as survivors. They give literary arms to other survivors.
The tagline of the book is “Surviving is testament to someone’s strength. Healing is testament to the community surrounding her.” I feel this perfectly sums up the duality of the book; an uplifting of the wisdom and bravery of survivors and the responsibilities of the communities in her healing process.
What was the most challenging aspect of putting together a book like this? What was the most rewarding?
L: The most challenging aspect was organizing over fifty contributors and editing a piece of literature that centralized on the most painful and unresolved part of their entire life. The anthology was completely organic in its inception. I learned a lot in this process because I never did anything like this before and there was no blueprint. I’d never seen anything like what I wanted to create and believing in something that was taking so long to finish was emotionally grueling. It tested every muscle of endurance.
Also absorbing all the stories - from the call from submission through the three years of editing the ones that ended up in the manuscript - took its toll on me as a human listener/reader. Though it is a book about hope, you can’t have hope without a nod to despair, and the weight of that despair could be crushing at times. I had to learn how to be an advocate again. To be balanced, to practice self-care. The last thing the world needs is another burned out person who meant well.
The most rewarding aspect of the process, by far, is when people contact me and write the book has helped them in their healing. When some of the contributors shared with me that writing their letter helped them talk to their mother again, or how putting their healing into words solidified a personal truth for them, there are no words to describe my joy. It is beyond rewarding. It is purpose.
What do you want readers to take away from this book? What are the essential lessons and narratives?
L: I want readers to take away a piece, no matter how small, that helps them understand the human condition. And the human condition is that we are not meant to be in isolation. Not in celebration, not in suffering, not in healing. We are meant to build and grow in communities and relationship with others. We are meant to learn how to love and converse with one another across differences, riches and struggles. To have each survivor close the book feeling a little bit lighter and less alone, to have the public consider how legislation, public policies, and social services impact survivors of sexual violence, to have family members and friends learn how rhetoric, love, and gentleness are radical tools for justice – this would be a great beginning for readers.
Topics: AK Authors!, Recommended Reading | No Comments »
The Heavy Stuff
By charles | September 25, 2013
Benjamin Franks, author of Rebel Alliances, has generously scanned issues of The Class War Federation’s theoretical journal The Heavy Stuff for anarcho-posterity. The journal lasted for five issues between 1987 and 1992. According to Ben, “There was also a ‘special edition’ of The Heavy Stuff…a pamphlet by Dave Douglass, ‘Coal Communities in conflict.’ It was written for Heavy Stuff No. 6, but I’m not sure if No. 6 ever came out. Class War also later went on to produce another magazine with a theoretical bent: A Touch of Class.”
I’ve uploaded pdfs of the scans for anyone who’s interested. Enjoy!
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THE HEAVY STUFF #1 |
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THE HEAVY STUFF #2 |
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THE HEAVY STUFF #3 |
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THE HEAVY STUFF #4 |
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THE HEAVY STUFF #5 |
Topics: AK Allies, AK Authors!, Anarchist Publishers | No Comments »
“We never, ever, heard a whisper of anything of that…”
By AK Press | September 20, 2013
AK Press author Jared Davidson (Sewing Freedom, 2013) has written a new article on little-known anarchist Johann Sebastian Trunk (1850–1933). As an anarchist historian with a focus on New Zealand, Davidson is used to following tough leads. Chasing a clue from a footnote, he was able to piece together a fascinating profile of Trunk, the Bavarian-born anarchist, who edited Freiheit (alongside Johann Most), shared a platform with Louise Michel, Peter Kropotkin, and Errico Malatesta, and later settled in New Zealand.
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Topics: AK Authors! | No Comments »
A New Gravestone For Harry Kelly
By AK Press | September 17, 2013
Nathan Jun is heading a campaign to restore Harry Kelly’s (1871–1953) gravestone, which has gone missing from his final resting place in Waldheim Cemetery. Kelly was a trade unionist who associated with the anarchist movement in 1894. He became friends with Emma Goldman, sparking a life-long friendship, after spearheading a campaign for the commutation of Alexander Berkman’s sentence for the assassination attempt on Frick. In the mid-1890s he co-edited The Rebel, later moving to England and working with the Freedom Group. He later founded the Ferrer Association in New York City and the Modern School in Stelton, NJ and was a driving force behind the modern school movement in the United States. We do hope you’ll contribute to this worthy endeavor.
Topics: AK Allies | No Comments »
Enter to win free books!
By Suzanne | September 11, 2013
See the link above for complete contest rules, but please note: winners in the US and Canada may choose between print and e-book formats; winners anywhere else will receive e-books (in their format of choice). Good luck!
Topics: AK Distribution, AK News | Comments Off
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